I' ve got great news for Croatian LOTR fans! I just found out from a VERY reliable source that the film will be shown in January, but they don't know the exact date yet. And, this is where it gets really exciting, there will be a premiere one day before the movie hits the theatres. It is very probable I will be attending it! Wow... If that really happens, I'll be the luckiest man alive... One more thing, there was a special report in a new Croatian magazine called "Klik!" about the filming.

I spotted an article in the UK magazine Now dated July 11th 2001. Their entertainment guide section has a two page spread on TFOTR. It has some 'slightly misinformed' text and seven pics in all, including a very nice one of Galadriel in her Swan barge. I think they've all been seen before but its nice to see coverage in a popular, 'none-genre' magazine that will have a potentially wide readership.

TORN Exclusive -Other SFX Companies to Work on Rings-Xoanon @ 11:57 am ESTThe following report came to me by way of a very reliable source that has contributed things in the past that have come proven to be right. It seems that WETA is going to shop out some of the effects work on the trilogy to some other (big and small) special effects houses around the world.

It seems that the entrance of Jim Rygiel as Visual Effects Supervisor for the "Lord of the Rings" changed things a bit more than expected.

In order to keep up with the December deadline for "The Fellowship of the Ring", it seems WETA Digital has had to farm out a part of the shots they were working on to third party studios. The biggest chunk went to Digital Domain (www.digitaldomain.com), one of the biggest houses in the U.S., known for award winning work like "Titanic", "Apollo 13" or "The 5th Element" (as an interesting note, Digital Domain was the studio where Mark Stetson - the former VFX supervisor of Lord of the Rings - did most of his recent work).

Also involved now on the movies are Animal Logic (www.animallogic.com), the Australian leading visual effects company, which did ground breaking work for "Matrix" and the recent "Moulin Rouge", and a lesser known company based in New Zealand, called Oktobor (www.oktobor.co.nz), specialized more in commercial and interactive design, rumored to be doing a couple of key sequences of the movie.

I have been working to get confirmation from all three SFX companies, they've all responded to my general inquiries, but I've only heard back from 'Animal Logic' on this topic so far. Their response was a 'We cannot comment on this right now', which is as close to a yes as you can get.

I heard an interview on National Radio this afternoon with veteran Kiwi actor Martyn Sanderson. In it he mentioned that he has a small role in The Lord of the Rings. He said it involved a couple of days' filming and only a few lines of dialogue. He didn't name his character, but said he played a human gatekeeper, and that he worked with the hobbits. This sounds as if he might be Harry Goatleaf, the gatekeeper at Bree.

With as much hair as Rasputin, round as a barrel, passably sloppy and a malicious gaze behind his glasses, Peter Jackson isn’t much to look at and resembles a hard-rocker making his comeback. However it is this forty-something New Zealander who has just completed a heroic-fantasy trilogy on a cult level in line with Star Wars …

Cine Live: Do you now have the feeling of being on Earth to direct the LOTR trilogy?

PJ: If you’d asked me the question, “Would you be interested by an adaptation of LOTR?” five years ago, I’d have looked at you with big flabbergasted eyes … No, I haven’t spent my life since my earliest years to bring Tolkien’s novel to screen. I was actually 18 when I discovered the book, and it was much later before I re-read it. It was practically 20 years later before a friend and I first suggested bringing LOTR to the screen. We asked ourselves why nobody had yet attempted an adaptation with flesh-and-blood actors. It was a very trivial conversation without a second thought, at least at the start, and that’s how everything began …

And afterwards? How did you get connected with the film project?

We then called our agent to ask him who held the rights of Tolkien’s novel. One thing led to another, and I got in contact with the directors of New Line, a company I’ve known for years because, in the Bad Taste and Brain Dead era, they had already offered me several projects to direct. The search for the rights, negotiations … All that needed a year. A year during which I didn’t open Tolkien’s book. I worked on the project using only my memory, superstitiously. I thought that if I got back into the novel, I would become so addicted that extracting a film from it would become impossible. A way of immunising myself, of blinding myself against a powerful deception! I waited until everything regarding the acquisition of the rights and so on, including my involvement, was sorted before re-reading LOTR …

LOTR takes its place in the continuity of the short films you made in your adolescence. Shorts which notably included cyclops … You were already quite close to Tolkien!

In a way, yes. It was my passion for the fantastic and the marvellous which led me to LOTR. Ray Harryhausen’s creatures were obviously important, the Seventh Voyage of Sindbad had such an influence on me when I was a kid. To such an extent that I pinched a few monsters to furnish my first shorts. There is also some Ray Harryhausen in the first part of LOTR, particularly in the battle sequence against the Orcs. A homage on my part.

Holding the reins of such a trilogy forces personal sacrifices …

Yes, I’ll admit that. Any film, actually, demands some form of sacrifice. Having said that, a project as gigantic as LOTR mobilises you 100%. Luckily, my wife Fran Walsh took part in the adventure as a script-writer. She was very understanding. Of course, I wanted to help her look after our two children more, but LOTR doesn’t leave me any time. This trilogy is exhausting. Four years of exhaustion, two down and two to go, but an exhaustion which I’ve got used to, as if it was a way of life, exhaustion clearly diminished by enthusiasm, passion … Between starting on the project and the release of the last film at the end of 2003, eight years will have passed. An enormous slice of life. And also, a fourteen month shoot, the responsibility of a $260 million budget, that’s not at all restful!

How do you analyse your fascination for the world of LOTR as a book? Your interest goes a lot further than the picturesque fantastical creatures, evil spells and magic …

Much of the interest of LOTR rests in its credibility and realism. The imaginary universe of Tolkien always seems real, solid. It’s not a made-up world, bing, like those in science-fiction films. Tolkien was a professor of language and mythology, he spent his life creating the universe of Middle-earth, giving it a specific history of several millennia, particular customs. It’s a completely separate planet, with its nations, its different cultures, its conflicts … Everything holds its own in LOTR. Nothing is free, especially the reasons which lead Frodo to destroy the Ring.

Can we, from there, consider LOTR as a fantasy film?The term “fantastic” is so open to interpretation! I didn’t shoot LOTR as a fantasy film, but as a historical panorama. I adopted the same point of view as Tolkien in the creation of Middle-earth. No question of letting the imagination run wild and go off on a tangent. That’s why we set off on the long search for costumes, weapons, accessories … We never said, “That doesn’t exist.” It had to exist, to have the air of a historical reconstruction on the same level as Braveheart!

How did you go about adapting Tolkien’s novel? Did you anticipate fan reactions at the writing stage and on the set?

No. Really LOTR is not a film made for fans of Tolkien, but rather a film made by fans of Tolkien. There’s an appreciable difference. Of course, there’ll always be people moaning that we reduced the importance of one character, that we slashed such a part of the novel …Even three two-hour films cannot suffice to retell all of Tolkien’s narrative, which is very complex, very dense. I’m talking about those who read LOTR every year. [Translator’s note: I do, and I’m not moaning!] They’ll jump on me, even though the film never betrays Tolkien. On the contrary.

You’re taking the risk of not pleasing people?The challenge of such an enterprise is actually trying to please as many people as possible! In fact, to touch people, you have to start by pleasing yourself. And that’s what I did with LOTR. I never thought of the public. I thought simply of the film I dreamt of seeing, exactly as in the time of Bad Taste, Brain Dead and Heavenly Creatures!

Statements like that don’t reassure producers. Especially when the financial aspects are so important …

The people in charge at New Line left me wonderfully alone. What they said was simple: “You know what you’re doing, great, we’re not Tolkien specialists …” They stepped aside. Truthfully speaking, we had a sizeable ally in the shape of the chief producer at New Line, Mark Ordesky. We’ve known each other for years. His mother admitted to me that when he was a kid, he stuck LOTR posters in his room!

Was convincing New Line to shoot LOTR in New Zealand, in other words at home for you, difficult?Any American or European filmmaker with common sense would have chosen New Zealand as the principal location for the trilogy. I didn’t shoot LOTR in my country from laziness or selfishness, but simply because I found there Tolkien’s descriptions of Middle-earth. New Zealand and Middle-earth are one and the same. Everything’s there. Active volcanoes, a thick European-style forest, snow-topped peaks, lakes, rivers, grasslands, even a desert … There’s no need for special effects to recreate Tolkien’s world, or very few in what concerns the natural settings. Clearly New Zealand still possesses the fibre and the aspect of the legends of old Europe, those that inspired Tolkien.

Why did you first hire Stuart Townsend for the role of Aragorn, before replacing him with Viggo Mortensen?Stuart Townsend is an excellent actor, and also a big fan of LOTR. He was really happy to act in the film, but doubtful from the start. Several times he warned me: “You’re crazy, a character of this stature should be older, marked by experience of existence.” And we replied systematically: “No, no, it’ll work on screen.” It’s true we wanted a young Aragorn. After shooting several scenes, we realised our mistake. Stuart was right. We’d got mislead. We were then really pushed to find the perfect Aragorn. Luckily Fate brought us Viggo Mortensen, who fitted the part perfectly.

Elijah Wood corresponds so well with the Frodo Baggins of Tolkien’s book that it’s worrying …Frodo Baggins is a hard character to visualise. Even more complex when you think that Tolkien made him the narrator of his book! We started the marathon of auditions with the certitude that the role of Frodo had to be played by an English actor whose mind corresponded with the description of hobbits. We auditions hundreds of possibles, but none were right. We hadn’t thought of Elijah Wood for a single instant on the pretext that he was American. So it was him who suggested his services, firstly by a motivation letter! Despite my reticence at the idea of hiring an American, I let him audition. As soon as he walked into the room, I faced facts: I had in front of me the Frodo of the book, exactly the same! It only took a few diction lessons with a teacher to get the English accent and Elijah was ready for the shoot.

Now you’ve directed LOTR, do you still feel close to what you were when you made ‘Bad Taste’ and ‘Brain Dead’, pinnacles of small-budget gory films?I’m still the same, I haven’t changed a bit. Like Bad Taste, Brain Dead and even, to a certain extent, Heavenly Creatures, LOTR has a certain sense of humour. Tolkien had humour in his book, the hobbits are very funny and mischievous beings. In addition, humour adds greatly to the realism, to the reality of the fantastical world which is Middle-earth. We could have taken the book in a very pompous and solemn manner and consequently fallen into the trap of being too serious. There are obviously dramatic passages in the film, but others are much lighter. We alternated according to the development of the story.

There is more and more talk of competition between the LOTR trilogy and the two future ‘Star Wars’. What is there exactly?

The competition between LOTR and the next SW exist only in the heads of certain people. It would exist if the films were released in precisely the same week. That’s not the case. Disagreeable things have been attributed to George Lucas on LOTR, circulated by the internet and total lies. Besides, he immediately rang me to deny having said such things. Now and again, I read declarations on the internet or in the press that are complete codswallop, but which I would have done. Some people are trying to create a rivalry between us via fantastic rumours. I can simply assure you that George Lucas and I get on very well. When we were starting to prepare LOTR, he even invited us to Skywalker Ranch. We saw the animated storyboards and special-effects models for the next SW … It was very friendly. George Lucas and his team gave us real support in the challenge we had to attempt.

Do you have the feeling that by making LOTR, you have become a star filmmaker?Really?! Fame doesn’t interest me. The public can consider a director as a star, but nothing obliges the director to play that role. I only want to shoot the films I want to make. No question of going to show off in Hollywood. I’m very happy in New Zealand, at the end of the world, and far away from all that racket.

THE GREAT PROMISE

6 months before the official release of the first part of LOTR, PJ came to the Croisette [that’s the promenade in Cannes] with two finished reels of his work. Mouthwatering.

It’s clear that the twenty minutes seen at the Film Market of Cannes is a bit short to definitively judge a work which will probably be longer than two hours. But the twenty minutes in question already make the mouth water. Where the reunion of the wizard Gandalf with Bilbo the hobbit constitutes lovely moments of emotion and happiness, the start of Frodo and his companions’ descent into the bowels of Middle-earth are shown by convincing images of the most epic passages of Tolkien’s book. What do we see? Sets of overpowering size, a sort of titanic cathedral directly carved into the rock, unending staircases plunging into the bowels of the Earth, thousands of warrior Orcs more credible in their abundance than the extras in Gladiator … And the demon Balrog, a sort of hybrid between a dragon and a bull, erupting in scenes of overwhelmingly powerful special effects. What hits you in this ‘digest’: the actors are completely in tune with the characters of the book, the scope of Peter Jackson’s direction, his efficiency without being showy. Without any bluffing, he has given life to Tolkien’s novel. Stanley Kubrick and John Boorman, once interested in adapting Tolkien to the screen, would undoubtedly have done it differently, but not necessarily better.

[There’s also a rundown on the fifteen main characters (the Fellowship, Bilbo, Saruman, Gollum, Arwen and Elrond) which I didn’t bother translating because there’s nothing new! The pictures throughout are ones we’ve seen before, but there are lots of them …]

Media Watch: Vanity FairXoanon @ 11:13 am ESTCuthalion takes a time machine and dips into the future to tell us what will be in the next issue of Vanity Fair. There's something deep inside that makes me laugh when I think about Dominic Monaghan chilling with Jackie Chan...

The next issue of Vanity Fair (featuring Mark Whalberg on the cover) has a brief, two page article on the Cannes film festival.

Featured are pictures from the Vanity Fair Cannes party. There's an awesome picture of Jackie Chan standing with our own Dominic Monaghan and Orlando Bloom, as well as a shot of Sean Bean and Liv Tyler sitting with Ethan Hawke. The snippet of an article mentions how LOTR was the most talked about film at the festival though only 25 minutes were shown.

Elendil, the Dunedain king of Arnor and Gondor, he was, along with Gil-Galad (Mark Ferguson) responsible for the downfall of Sauron during the Last Alliance, but was eventually killed.

As for McKenzie, he is a horse trainer, lawyer, and aspiring actor. Look for a pic from us soon. Thanks to Calindy

McKenzie has Lead Role at Ipswich

by Tony Meaney

Actor, lawyer, businessman, horse trainer. Take your pick and Jaybejay's New Zealand trainer Peter McKenzie fits the category. McKenzie arrived yesterday from New Zealand with Jaybejay and reported the horse had travelled much better than he did.

"I am a bit of a mess because after flying fron Auckland we stayed for a few hours in Graeme Rogerson's Sydney stable before catching the morning mail plane to Brisbane," McKenzie said.

Jaybejay will run in Saturday's $175,000 Group Three Ipswich Cup with apprentice Anthony Merritt on board. McKenzie returns to New Zealand after the race for filming on director Peter Jackson's eagerly awaited Lord Of The Rings.

"I play King Elendil in the film but it has been a lot of fun. Horse training is a lot harder," he said. McKenzie gained the role after a lot of theatre work in New Zealand and enjoys acting.

Most of Lord Of The Rings has been shot but McKenzie said the appalling weather conditions in New ZEaland before he "died" made it necessary to delay and re-shoot some scenes.

As a lawyer McKenzie did trial work in New Zealand but these days concentrates on running a deer velvet company. He runs a 1500-strong deer herd on his Otaki property along with a 20-strong broodmare band that support stallion His Royal Highness. The business has the potential to become huge because Asian buyers regard deer velvet as an aphrodisiac.

"It is a misconception that we kill the deer for the horn. Each year we clip the horn and NZ has a 500-tonne export quota to Korea and China," McKenzie said.

His Royal Highness is well known in Queensland through the efforts of the Kay Lane trained Figurehead and Figurante. Jaybejay is a third generation product of McKenzie's personal breeding plan and the five year old gelding has been a late maturer.

"I never bothered offering him for sale as a young horse because he was always going to be a late maturer," he said.

6-29-01

Hi, I'm Peter Jackson.....Xoanon @ 12:36 pm ESTRinger Spy Liam sends along word of what some european Ringers can see if they happen to catch the FOTR trailer at a local cinema! A personal greeting from PJ!

I live in France and just saw the FOTR trailer at the movies... There's a short message from PJ before it starts.

He's filmed in a t-shirt and shorts (sounds like PJ to me) in front of some plants, the shot is pretty wide and looks like 35mm (i.e. not video) but I could be wrong. He basically says "Hello, I'm Peter Jackson and I'm talking to you from New Zealand where we've been doing LOTR. As you know LOTR is a trilogy and we're making 3 movies..."

I can't remember precisely what he said but it's pretty short. At the end he says something like "I invite you to see some new images", or whatever.

It's short and I got distracted so I didn't catch 100% of what was said, but I can assure you it's VERY cool!

BookExpo Report with some Cool Info!!Xoanon @ 11:34 am ESTRinger Spy Kinch sends along word on the recent Book Expo that was attended by Houghton Mifflin and suits from New Line, Kinch also sends along word of not one but TWO TV specials coming this fall!!

I was at the BookExpo and had a front row seat for the LOTR presentation, and I can assure you it went over big. The trailers made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, but the stuff they showed at the presentation was just . . . awesome.

Afterwards, New Line and Houghton-Mifflin took some of us to a very nice dinner over Harvest on Huron, where we talked about the films and film in general. I had a blast.

HM is really guarded with the amount of artwork they've let us see, it's nothing you haven't seen and posted already. For example, the new pix of Frodo in Rivendell you recently posted were things I saw at the BEA, but couldn't get copies of. I do have a calendar that summarizes the promotion rollout.

Basically there are two rollout dates. In September new editions of all three books in the trilogy will be released in trade paperback and hardcover by HM, plus they'll release posters. There will be a 1-hr TV special. Then, in November, the Visual Companion and Movie Guide will be released and TV ads for the movie will begin.

Ballantine will then exercise their option on the mass market paperbacks, but I don't really know what they're planning. Around Thanksgiving there will be a second TV special. Obviously New Line wants to make the uninitiated aware of the backstory and history of Middle Earth.

They have a regular feature they throw in between films called "IFC at Cannes" - this was a clip on "the paparazzi" and was a series of shots of actors and actresses talking about being interviewed interspersed with shots of the media hounding various stars. There were three quick shots of Our Heroes sitting in a row.

I think the point was to show Rhys-Davies being totally out of control as far as being interviewed; he was out of his seat, making jokes, saying something about "come on, give us your BEST question." Sean Bean was laughing at him while Viggo had this tight little polite smile on and looked like he'd rather be anywhere else in the world.

EW Talks LOTRXoanon @ 11:21 am ESTThanks to a Random Hobbit we've got the scans from the new Entertainment Weekly, they have a small article and what they claim are 'new' pics from LOTR. I guess these guys don't surf the net much...

When a trailer for Peter Jackson's unfinished trilogy The Lord of the Rings popped up on the Net last year, fans of author J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy downloaded it more than 1.7 million times in 24 hours. The New Zealand director (Heavenly Creatures, The Frighteners) knew his progress was being monitored not just by New Line Cinema, which bankrolled the $US270 million project, but by a global army of Tolkien aficionados. A 20-minute sneak peek of the first instalment screened at Cannes last month earned rapturous applause. "You can't believe," Jackson, 39, said later, "the weight off my shoulders." For 14 months he has toiled in rural New Zealand, shooting the three films back-to-back with a cast including Sir Ian McKellen (Gandalf), Elijah Wood (Frodo Baggins), Cate Blanchett (Galadriel) and Hugo Weaving (Elrond). Part 1, The Fellowship of the Ring, opens in Australia on Boxing Day 2001, with Parts 2 and 3 at 12-month intervals. Recreating Tolkien's enchanting Middle Earth and giving appearance to a legion of hobbits, elves, dwarves and orcs was made easier, says Jackson, by "having wonderful source material." And just to make sure, his on-set mantra was "Make it real." — Craig Henderson

Just read today's copy of Metro, a Scottish daily newspaper, and it had an interview with stand-up comedian Johnny Vegas. Why would you be interested and what's this got to do with LOTR? Well, it seems that Mr Vegas was once considered for the part of a certain Sam Gamgee! Here's the question and answer refering to LOTR:

Q: Were you disappointed not to get a part in Lord of the Rings?

A: I actually went to a casting for Sam Gamgee and got a call back with the director. But I did a gig the night before and the mike broke so I ended up shouting and lost my voice. They probably thought I was rubbish anyway. I went through a few months of getting drunk and e-mailing the official site saying it should have been me.

Now, if you're not familiar with Johnny Vegas I'll fill you in on a few of his... erm... traits (I think that's the best word to describe them!). If this casting had come to fruition then Sam would have been wondering around the Shire with a six-pack of beer under his arm and a fag (cigarette to those uninitiated to UK slang) hanging out of the corner of his mouth. Along with his 60-a-day habbit, Sam would have a pretty strong hoarse regional accent with a penchant to swearing and ogling at the lady hobbits.

Imagine the scene if you will:

'Give us that thur ring, Frodo -cough- -wheeze- and a'll bloody well get rid of the bugger.' Sam procedes to put the ring under his rather sweaty green-hued armpit where not even the dark lord would dare to venture.

There's a pic of him on his slightly sparse homepage here: http://www.johnny-vegas.net/

Just in case you would like to add this to media-watch files, here are two small articles from the greek film magazine "Cinema". They were part of their Cannes Festival Special published in the July edition. Apparently the reporter was invited to both the special screening and the party.

1/"The Lord of the Rings".

Impresive special effects, magnificent sets, big helpings of heroism and action and a genouine fairytale atmosphere: a 25minute collage of scenes was enough to convince us that the wait for Peter Jackson's grandiose fantasy epic is more than worth it. The small sample we saw convinced us among other things, that the ingenious New Zealander director has given to Tolkien's universe more soul, than Lucas ever did to the "plastic", digital wolrds of his films. Patience till Christmas, when the film makes its worldwide premiere.

2/"Invitation to dinner by a prospective blockbuster"

Long before the "Holywood Reporter" gave it 5/5 Martinis, the LOTR party was the most important "extra-cinematografic" event of the festival. In a castle, 15Km from the Croisette, the cast of the much-expected trilogy was strolling till late at night among 1000 guests, roasting porks and endless bottles of champagne in avast garden decorated with the films origianl sets, brought over from New Zealand. Knights on horses, Liv Tyler shoeless and trip-hop from the loudspeakers for those who would not wake up the next mornong to watch "Roberto Succo". We, unfortunately, we not amongst them.....

Although there is quite a big following for LOTR in Greece, the local press hasnt yet given much attention to the upcoming films. Some party footage was shown by some "evening-news" bradcasts and the local sponsors, a publishing house, run series-like articles at their magazines, but they are mostly translations from other us/european papers and internet sites. They do quote "theonering.net" as the number one site though.

6-25-01

LOTR Clothes to Buy?Xoanon @ 1:19 pm ESTRinger Spy Wolfman sends along this interesting report. Who knows if we'll ever see some Frodo vests or Gandalf hats at the next MTV Awards!

A bit of information (and it's good news about a field where the news have given me mixed feelings lately; merchandise).

I was on my way back from a meeting in Munich when I saw a guy carrying an interesting folder at the airport, waiting for the same plane as me. What caught my interest was an obvious "Lord of the Rings" Logo peeping out from beneath his arms. I approached him and he told me that he was on his way back from the European licensing negotiations about our beloved movie trilogy. Asked about his role, he said that he and his company were responsible for textiles, and asked what my feelings about the merchandising was so far. Since I am a hardcore fan only on the literature side (I detest the new German translation, for example), I answered that it's okay; I like the Weta stuff but could have done without BK and the like. He agreed, and now here it is; at least in Europe, there won't only be the usual T-Shirts with print-material on it, they will come out with a complete fashion collection (for men and women), with several (!) lines of (he said really wearable) clothing inspired by the movies.

Naturally, he was quite secretive about it, but the cover-drawing I saw looked really neat; appearing to be made of linen, it featured a long dress with tengwar (?) applications at the sleeves and the neck. When he said that his folder also contained the new trailer (for september) and some material for a DVD-release on CD, I should have lured him into a dark corner and knocked him down.

Oh yes; they plan on consulting some die-hard fans from the European scene for final input!!

Now, i know this is bad research on my part, but we have had an image of the Cave Troll all along in our Movie Scrapbook. This image is from the 2000 Video Software Dealer's Association Show.

Read the excerpt from my Cannes report on the footage below:

STORY/MOVIE SPOILERS"I personally have never seen anything like this on the big screen. The Cave Troll is not made of rocks or stone or anything like that. It almost looks like you could squeeze and have your hands slide right off. It has a dull grey thick skin and a huge bulbous head with eyes very spread apart. The beast is so big and powerful you immediately realize that there is no way the Fellowship can beat this thing. It's just that unstoppable. It initially uses a huge hammer to attack. Huge chunks of floor are dislodged as he swings and misses. Legolas leaps up on to a higher ledge and fires arrows into the beast to draw its attention. The troll then grabs a chain and uses it as a whip. Legolas is too fast. Aragorn attempts to attack it and is tossed across the room. The others are still engaged with some orcs.

We then cut to a shot of Frodo hiding behind a pillar. He is sliding along the circumference as the Troll is searching for him. It's almost like the classic cat and mouse game. As Frodo slides to the right, the Troll peers to the left and sees nothing. As the Troll peers to the right, Frodo has slid to the left. Then Frodo begins to slide back to the right and without warning the troll catches onto his game. That big bulbous head suddenly appears in front of Frodo and we all jump out of our seats. Frodo stumbles back and begins a feeble attempt to escape the Troll's attacks. Aragorn at one point runs to Frodo's defense, only to be knocked out of contention as he is tossed away. The Troll picks up a huge pole and slams it into Frodo. The camera is set up so that it looks like Frodo takes a direct hit in the chest. Everything slows down as Frodo reels in pain and in astonished disbelief. The entire Fellowship looks at what has just happened and scream in agony. Even the Troll has a look of surprise at the affect of what he's done. Frodo slumps to the floor. Merry and Pippin scream madly and jump on the Troll's back, stabbing frantically with vengeance. Aragorn picks up the pole and sticks it under the Troll's upper right rib cage. As the Cave Troll screams in anger, at yet another small nuisance wound in his side, he opens his mouth just enough for Legolas to skillfully shoot an arrow directly into his upper palette. The assumption is that the arrow reaches his brain and kills him. The Troll falls to the crowd with a dramatic thud."

Media Watch: Starlog MagazineXoanon @ 4:08 pm ESTScans have also come in for the latest issue of 'Starlog Magazine', and there is an amzing new shot of....somthing!!! Whatever it is, it's cool!! Thanks to Gorel for the scans!!

Media Watch: SFX MagazineXoanon @ 3:41 pm ESTScans from the latest issue of SFX Magazine have arrived at my mailbox thanks to Scatha. Check them out for a few new pics of LOTR toys!

Im a massive fan of your site - check it everyday. Just thought you might be interested to know that accoring to my friend (who works in the music sindustry here in England) Enya will be performing for the LOTR theme! Here is an extract of what he emailed me:

"...my mate Nicky Ryan in Dublin is recording the theme tune for the Lord of the Rings movie, which will be performed by Enya... "

Xoanon here: While I do know that Enya is a huge LOTR fan, I've not heard anything about this from my usual music sources yet. I will be checking up on this rumor all week.